The workshop, step by step

Sign in with Google

Use the Google account for the email that was added for you. Sign-in asks Google for your name, email and profile picture.

Bring in your draft

Type or paste it, or import it from Google Docs. Import asks Google for access separately, at that moment, and only to the one document you pick. The text comes in as plain text, and your Google Doc stays as it was.

From then on every save is kept as a new version, and those versions can't be changed or deleted from inside the app. On the Versions tab you can also name a draft and go back to it later, and the History tab lists every change, with a button to put the old text back. Putting old text back saves it as a new version.

Add each school's supplements

On your home page, press Add an essay. Pick the kind, such as Why this school, type the school's name, paste its prompt and set its word limit. Each supplement has its own draft, versions, history and coach conversations, and the coach is told the school, the prompt and the limit.

Invite your advisor, family and friends

Press Sharing at the top of the workshop, add each person's email and say who they are: your advisor, a parent, or a friend or someone else. Then tick what they may do. What you allow applies to all of your essays. An advisor starts with the draft, notes and reviews in view and can add notes. A parent or a friend starts with the draft in view and can add notes. Conversations with the coach and editing stay off until you turn them on.

AdmitUs doesn't email them, so tell them to sign in at admitus.me with that address. Anyone besides you can use the AI tools only if you allow both “See the draft” and “Edit the draft and use the AI tools”.

Add your advisor's guidance

Once invited, your advisor can type guidance in the Advisor tab, each item aimed at one part of the essay. You can also enter advice yourself, such as what your advisor said in a meeting. Then mark each item Following, Not following or Not decided yet. You can change your mind later, and every change is kept.

Write with the coach

Ask the coach about your draft in the Coach tab. It sees the draft with numbered paragraphs, your notes, your newest review if you've run one, the guidance with your decisions, and the conversation you're in. It doesn't remember other conversations.

To work on one sentence, highlight it in any paragraph and use the sentence workshop. When the coach suggests new wording, your draft stays as it was until you put the words in yourself.

Run a review

When a draft is ready, the review scores it on eight things. It also goes through your advisor's guidance item by item and marks each one Follows it, Partly, Not yet, or Your choice not to. Beside the draft, a word count shows how close you are to the word limit, and the page marks typos, stock phrases, words that often read as AI-written, and any sentence pasted word for word from a coach suggestion.

1. Answers the promptThe reader can name the essay's main point in one sentence.
2. Shows the change happeningThe change is shown in a specific scene, not only described.
3. Reflection and insightThe lesson is the writer's own and goes past a familiar line.
4. Sounds like the writerIt reads like a thoughtful senior talking to an interested adult.
5. Specific detailNames, places and details only the writer could know.
6. Structure and pacingThe opening makes the reader want to keep going, and the ending comes back to it.
7. Beyond the eventThe reader learns who the writer is outside this one event.
8. Clean writingAt or under the word limit, with correct grammar and punctuation.